Another, perhaps relevant series of factoids: BCLSB regular Jermo Sapiens recently placed this piece in both the National Post's on-line and print editions, but received nothing in the way of recompense. Now, I remember The Star publishing some of my stuff as Op-Eds back in the 1990s, at which time they paid out $150 per article. Finally, if you read the on-line NP these days, you'll see a fair bit of content being supplied by various Blogging Tories (Taylor and Janke esp.). So, as things go sour on The Natty Post, are they turning to writers who are willing to wordsmith for free? Are they using bloggers as unpaid labor?

Raised by Monks, once an MP for the New Democratic Party, Dennis Gruending writes Pulpit and Politics, one of my favorite Canadian Political blogs. In his latest, he offers a terrific look at the differences in how Canadians and Americans mix their religion-politics cocktail. Nothing particularly surprising, other than his observation that it has been Obama who has been engaged in the most "god talk" during this latest U.S. election cycle. But I suppose as a Dem. you have an inherent "God Deficit" to make up. I also suspect that crusty old John McCain is genuinely reticient about baring his soul for public inspection. A rather admirable trait.

Well, this is not the exact wording but a summary by Kadey O'Malley. Nevertheless, I bet some people out there named "Ezra" are crapping themselves. Cuz it sounds like our PM is primed for inaction on this particular issue.

Another hint along the same lines comes from Stephen Taylor's response to Shaidle, in which he argues that HRCs are doing a good job "self-discrediting". Presumably this is in advance of their spontaneously disbanding.

2. Call the Globe and Mail 416-585-5000 Find Patrick Martin and Edward Greenspon in the directory, and demand Wente be dismissed.

3. Cancel your Globe subscription, or call someone you know who subscribes and encourage them to cancel.

4. Educate yourself about the real history of Indigenous peoples on this land, and share accurate information about what went on, and what's going on, with your friends and colleagues.Well, it sounds like they are asking folks to use their powers of persuasion on the Globe's editorial staff. Scary shit! And it also sounds like their asking people to exercise their rights as a consumer to withdraw the money they send every year to the paper and use it to purchase other goods and services. Can you not just feel the Totalitarianism oozing off your computer screen?

And lets imagine for a moment that they succeed: the G&M looks to its bottom line and, weighing subscriptions lost vs. losses it might take were Ms. Wente to write for some other publication (maybe these guys), they decide to throw her overboard.

Has something undemocratic happened? Hardly, I would argue. In fact I would even go further: something wonderfully Capitalist has happened. The Market responded to the desires of the marketplace. Carry on Capitalism!

For one thing, this in context is a lotta hoosegow. Neither Pound nor Wente used nor intended the term in the sense noted above.

Secondly, the concept of the "noble savage" entails its own set of condescending stereotypes. For example, the "noble savage" as a literary character tends to physically resemble a white guy with a tan. For example, check out this description of Oroonko, the protagonist in Aphra Behn's early novel "Oroonko, or: The Royal Slave":

And it is entirely unsurprising that the most famous example of the type, Tarzan, is in fact a white man transplanted into the jungle.

But arguing like this with Barb Kay is essentially offering pearls to swine. After spending a good couple hundred words of digression on how not all uses of the term "savage" are derogatory, she simply pivots in the last few sentences to offer her own personal assurance that Margaret Wente doesn't have "a drop of racism" in her. Since all this babbling about Rousseau and Co. does absolutely nothing to prove this contention, one wonders what the point of it all was. A gratuitous display of erudition? Or, perhaps more accurately, of googling skills?

Here is the complete poll. I'd be interested in knowing what the party breakdown was for voters who made their minds up before the campaign began, vs. those who made their minds up during its course. I don't think you can derive that from the numbers given here, but its early and I still need to coffee up.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Interesting how little role "Free Speech" Issues played during the last election campaign. This battle is over, I think. With M-446 dead and a Tory Majority thwarted, all the Speechies have to show for it is their mounting legal bills.

Oh, and by the way. Some good news re real Free Speech threats. Just linking to material that might be considered defamatory won't get you in legal trouble. Down with Wayne Crookes!

In other words, once you gave money to the Liberal Party--not because of their platform, which was malleable--because it seemed inevitable that they would win. Since that no longer appears to be the case, what exactly is your donation buying you?

A warning to those who might take the party to the mushy middle. There's gotta be some "there" there.

It is almost impossible to understate the influence of Mr. de Valk and his magazine, and you can make a good argument that Harper won the '08 election without the SoCon gang on-side and can therefore ignore them going forward. That is, Harper won by ignoring his base, not embracing it. But it is interesting that Mr. de Valk's commentary echoes, in some of its complaints re the anti-democratic process involved in choosing candidates, allegations made by disgruntled non-SoCons within the party. For example, Charles Conn (Mississauga Reform Party candidate in 1993) represents the small government/socially moderate wing of the CPoC. During this election campaign, Mr. Conn wrote:

...a scenario which is probably not likely at the moment. But who knows? Given the economic hardship ahead of the country, and the persistence of Quebecers demanding money from the Conservative government while not offering it much in the way of electoral return, such cracks in the fragile alliance that is the CPoC could be exacerbated.

Monday, October 27, 2008

...over the slightly funny-smelling recount in Vancouver South. Conservative party official Ray Leitch doesn't expect to get the judge in question to change his mind, but what the hey. I'd like to hear the reasoning behind the judges decision here myself.

Kudos, incidentally, to the new Western Standard. Looks like they're getting their hands on some half decent material these days. (although it looks like this interview first appeared in the Ottawa Sun)

Sunday, October 26, 2008

...as this article rather naively suggests. However, Michael Clemons might well pull the City of Toronto from the clutches of David Miller, and its more than a bit odd that Rob Granatstein's column today doesn't mention him as a possible candidate. Sure, Clemens has said "no", but the race is a couple of years down the road and there is still time for him to change his mind.

Unless you live here, it is hard to appreciate just how much Toronto loves its Pinball. I have had the pleasure of listening to him speak, and he is (at least when delivering a set-piece) very good. Afterwards, though, when he allows himself to mingle with his audience, is when the wild stuff happens. His bodyguard is apparently under instructions to treat the crowd with kid-gloves, and he is almost literally mobbed by (primarily although not entirely) middle-aged white women, usually a couple inches taller than he is, who want to touch him. The mayoralty is his if he wants it, and who knows that that might serve as a stepping stone to higher office.

So while Pinball is not Canada's Obama, at least not yet, he may be our new Mel Lastman.

Associate Professor Peter Brown and Phil McCausland, a postdoctoral researcher in Planetary Science, are hoping to enlist the help of local residents in recovering one or more possible meteorites that may have crashed....find one and you'll have beer and pizza money for a week.

But then how does this square with his remarks being "true", as Ms. Wente claims them to be? Anthropological classifications, presumably in this case something like Lewis H. Morgan's phases of cultural evolution, come and go for the same reason as they do in other areas of knowledge: they are superseded by better and more accurate classifications. The obsolete classifications are then generally referred to as "false".

In any case, its wonderful how Ms. Wente turns a bit of idiocy on the part of Dick Pound into a bout of native bashing.

Pankiw can be prosecuted for spreading "discrimination," every MP is at risk. Not a day goes by when MPs don't offend one group or another. We allow it; we expect it; in fact, we give MPs more freedom than any other Canadians, even exempting their debates from defamation law, on the liberal theory that all ideas should be heard, and in the clash of views, the truth will emerge and the country will be better off. It's called parliamentary privilege, and it goes back centuries. It's one of our ancient civil rights, designed to protect the people's representatives from political interference from the King.Whether or not Pankiw "wins" his trial is irrelevant. He's already lost, and so have we. The message is loud and clear: The CHRC has ended parliamentary immunity.

Mr. Pankiw has already attempted to play the parliamentary immunity card, to which CHRT chairperson Grant Sinclair responded as follows:

Being called a law-breaker is about the worst defamation you could say about someone, especially a lawyer like me. It's a complete fabrication, factually inaccurate and completely unfair. But, because it was uttered in the House of Commons, it is protected by "absolute privilege". Ms. [Raymonde]Folco is immune to a lawsuit.

Today my lawyers fired off this letter to her. And, until she repeats her accusations outside of Parliament, the letter is all that can be done, legally.

And, just as an aside, Ezra writes:

The suit against Pankiw is clearly unconstitutional. In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that human rights commissions could only pursue "hate" cases against Canadians whose messages were pure evil -- they were explicitly forbidden from touching political speech.Here he is referring to CHRC vs. Taylor, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 892. But, of course, as I pointed out yesterday, this case referred exclusively to the constitutionality of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Pankiw is being charged with violating sections sections 5, 12, and 14. So while Levant's argument may be relevant to some other case, it is not relevant to this one.

Some further thoughts on yesterday's post and specifically a point raised by Ezra Levant - one that demands some further attention. Ezra writes:

The CHRC has long ago abandoned the legal limits set out by the Supreme Court in its 1990 Taylor case, that prohibited "hate" prosecutions of political views. They are violating the constitution.

Ezra's specifically referring to the landmark Supreme Court ruling which narrowly upheld Section 13 - under which a John Ross Taylor was charged and under which former MP Jim Pankiw has been charged. You can read the full decision here.

Of the argument which follows, I can only say that I was impressed by it and hope Mr. Breakenridge one day finds a context to which it is appropriate.

However, Mr. Pankiw is not being charged under Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. He is being charged under sections 5, 12, and 14. While 12 deals with Publication of discriminatory notices, etc. , 5 and 14 refer to the discrimination and harassment in the provision of services. As householders, Pankiw's pamphlets are a public good/service provided by an MP to his constituents and whoever else receives them. In this case, the publications were used to harass and discriminate against a sub-set of these constituents. That, at least, is the argument.

The fact that the service provided was a pamphlet, a vehicle of communication, is tangential, and therefore so are the implications of this case for the current debate over section 13. Certainly, a repeal of section 13 would not have had any effect of this case going forward whatsoever.

Meet Epidexipteryx hui, a new dinosaur from Inner Mongolia, China. The four ribbon-like tail feathers likely helped the creature balance on tree branches. The feathers are described as lacking that main shaft down the middle, and are just a really long collection of very long, filamentous-like structures.

Dear friends,A few weeks ago, Stephen Harper was headed for a majority government and 4 years of unchallenged control over our country and our environmental policies. Coming together like never before, 63% of Canadian voters stopped him. And that's just the beginning. It was close, so every bit of effort mattered. In just the 2 weeks before election day, Avaaz members rallied to run full page newspaper ads and hundreds of radio ads across the country, raised over $135,000 in a few days, produced a song from top Canadian artists that played on radio stations across the country, helped get over 400,000 Canadians to receive voting guidance from voteforEnvironment.ca, and took over 15000 pledges to vote strategically in close races.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Earlier this week, Kady hosted an interesting discussion on the make-up of parliamentary committees given the number of MPs from each party in the HOC. I wonder if Casey's return (assuming that he is returning) will give the Tories their long-sought committee Majority?

Update for NN readers:

Recapping Kadey's math

143 MPS + Casey = 144 MPS= 46.7% of House Seats.

12 (standard committee size) x 0.467 = 5.6 members per committee, if these are allocated in proportion to HOC seats.

5.6 rounded up gives 6 seats per committee. Where the committee is chaired a Member of an opposition party, that is a limited majority.

The full judgement is here. My favorite bit, from Botiuk vs. Toronto Free Press Publications Ltd., is this definition of a defamatory publication: Note how similar the language is to section 13 of the Human Rights Act:

This makes sense if you consider hate speech (and I have heard it described this way) as defamation against groups. But, since a number of people have made the argument that the language of (13).1 is hopelessly vague, it also begs the question: how is that vague if the concept of defamation is clear? Speechys?...Anyone??

Also, got my first look at Shaidle's The Tyranny of Nice. A review may follow eventually but, at a mere 98 pages, it very much looks like a publication some lawyer took a pair of garden shears too (severely clipped, in other words). Most of defamatory material on Lucy and Warman and Kinsella is missing. There's nothing, for example, re Kinsella's alleged superfluous 3rd nipple. In fact, I can't find any reference to Warren at all (although I have admittedly only glanced at my new E-book). And nothing about me! That really hurts. Anyway, what is left seems a boring cut-and paste of bowdlerized versions of blog posts you've probably already read. Like porn with the screw scenes marked over with red ink.

The last leadership race was fun. This one already looks to become an embarrassment, but I'm sure it will achieve its own form of trashy glory before all is said and done. Hair will get pulled, spectacles get broken. Iggy will step on a rake. Twice. And accidentally set his own tie on fire. And randomly accuse the Latverians of war-crimes.

At this moment environmentalists should be looking to make sure the Tories implement the plan they have already offered. It is in fact a series of regulations that set intensity targets for polluters, and then gives them several offset-buying alternatives should they fail to meet these targets. It sucks, but it's there. Should a new government come in, raze the regulatory mechanism that the Tories are building, and start from scratch--well, this counts as another form of delay, doesn't it? Instead, our hypothesized new government should toughen up whatever regulations the Tories leave behind (assuming they are serious about implementing any sort of green plan).

Pretty common sense thus far. One reason I've never actually joined the Liberal party is because signing up is really just the first step in acquiring a say in the direction of the party--in, for example, getting an opportunity to help choose a leader. The second step is brown-nosing your way into the favor of some local riding poo-bah and getting selected as a delegate. And, even once you get to the convention, bizarre and archaic rules "bind" you to a candidate you may not personally support for a long stretch of voting.

And, oh yes, at every step the party wants to suck money out of you.

With the Tories, it was a 10$ charge and I was in (back in the 1990s). I am given to understand that the NDP process is also quite a bit less baroque. If the Libs want more money out of their Members then, paradoxically, they are going to have to treat them as something more than cash cows.

But what Radwanski doesn't seem to understand is that, at the 2006 Montreal convention the Party rejected one-member one-vote and decided to keep instead that three ring monkey show, that combination of bacchanal and smoke filled rooms, known as a delegated convention. So, as far as I can determine, another one more of these at least is unavoidable.

What should happen now, then, is that they should get the damn thing out of the way. And both a new leader and a series of party reforms--recommitting the Liberals to their grass roots and ditching the convention format--should emerge from the May meeting in Vancouver.

I would like something to be done sooner, but I don't see how that is possible.

Man, I saw enough of these guys at the National Gallery. Apparently, between the 7 of them they painted every tree in Canada: Green trees, sure, but red and yellow trees, blue trees, and trees leaning out over bodies of waters.

They also were heavily into rocks, and painted rocks up the yin-yan. This small oil (12 x 15 inches), by Lawren Harris, entitled "Greenland", is definitely from their "rocks" period, with a bit of snow thrown in for good measure.

A story about "Reggy" (RGGI), the regional cap and trade program set to go into effect in the American North East (participating states include New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and all six New England states — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont).

An interesting twist: during the last several years emissions in the participant states have gone down instead of up, due to the current economic slowdown, mild weather, and a gradual shift to natural gas.

Roger Pielke Jr. thinks this tells against the whole idea of Carbon Trading because, from their current level

But if "business as usual" is a downward trend, what is the problem other than the set-up costs involved in RGGI look somewhat ill-spent? But then the system is there should, upon an economic recovery, the necessary technological advances not have emerged to ensure a permanent reduction in emissions.

Up front, lets admit that the skeptics were right; no matter what its advantages as policy, the Green Shift was a tax shift, and a tax shift contains the word "tax", and as such the whole idea was not saleable to too large a proportion of the Canadian electorate.

(As an aside, note that in the post above Kinsella writes:

Sifting through the entrails leaked out to the media, was I wrong to oppose a carbon tax right now? No way. I'm for punishing polluters, not consumers. Cap-and-trade; not this.

Warren knows that's all bullshit. You raise prices on polluters and they raise prices on the consumer that purchases their polluting service. Same person pays in the end. A C&T system is just a slightly more dishonest way of going about the process.

But whatever.)

And lets admit up front that the Tories quite thoroughly mis-represented the GS .

Lets just consider it as policy.

As policy (and I say this as someone who loyally supported the GS while occasionally bringing up caveats), it was flawed in several respects.

For example, the idea that the GS was a wealth redistribution scheme contained an element of truth. Don't ask me; just ask (now ex-) Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff, who wrote that:

The Liberal Party’s Green Shift announced on June 19th marked the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The ‘shift’ will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.

Now, Mr. Boshcoff didn't come out and actually say that the GS would send Alberta money East, but we all know where the "oil patch" is, don't we?

And as much I wouldn't mind seeing Alberta screwed out of its oily dough, for other reasons it always bothered me that the GS was not a purely environmental initiative. Environmental concerns were being used as an excuse to scare up funds for the broader Liberal platform, about which I personally had far more ambiguous feelings. I mean, my days as a compassionate Lefty are way past gone. I am far more worried these days about saving the bunnies than helping single-moms or the homeless. And I don't care who knows it. Animals are innocent; people are assholes. But whatever.

Similarly, it bothered me that the only sense in which the GS was "revenue neutral" was in the broader metaphoric sense, in that the Government would spend 1$ for each dollar the GS collected.

And the last thing that bothered me was the general laziness with which the plan was introduced. For example, I cheered when, in September, Dion tweaked the GS so as to assuage certain rural concerns over fuel, heating and other costs. But the fact (and I think Paul Wells pointed this out somewhere) that a Carbon Tax would effect certain regions of Canada more than others should have been obvious at the outset. Anyone with a slightest knowledge of the issue should have realized this. So the Dion Liberals offered a hugely complex green plan without having thought it all though, that none of their MPs ever really understood or could explain in detail, and then they went and changed it. The whole thing would have been a bit more bullet proof if these attempts at amelioration had been in the original version.

Personally, I was reminded of the whole Dion/Suzuki thing, where Dion, before he became Lib Leader even, produced a green policy document that contained cut-and-paste material from "The Air We Breathe" put out by the David Suzuki Foundation. For the Libs Enviro Guy, Dion has been pretty sloppy about assembling and presenting his whole political/environmental philosophy.

In any case, I wouldn't want to over-accentuate the negative. In fact the GS, if fully implemented by a Dion government, would have had minuscule negative economic effects. And, in fact, a Cap and Trade system simply = a Carbon tax with twice the bureaucracy. But, beyond the Tory disinformation campaign, there were plenty of aspects of the GS that lent themselves to legitimate criticism. I don't know if it is entirely impossible to run on a tax, but the Libs made it particularly difficult to run on this one.

Any of the changes to the upper chamber proposed by Stephen Harper thus far amount to an attempt to shift power from Central Canada to the West without having to shift the requisite bodies out West to force a redistribution of power in the HOC, which is based more or less on rep. by pop.

On the political level, an NEP in reverse, in other words.

Ontario and Quebec MPs of all stripes should oppose any such changs. Abolition should be the only reform acceptable to Central Canada.

(But of course talk of Senate reform at this point is simply a slice of red meat waved before the Tory base. It isn't like Harper is serious about pushing Senate reform in the face of a looming recession and looming deficits. But if he ever got serious about it, that's what I would say.)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Very little has changed, popular vote wise, though the seat totals have (although not so much to affect the basic situation--three parties must band together to defeat Tories in a Commons vote but they still dominate the committees).

A new leadership race now means no effective opposition for another year, means the new Lib leader has to abstain as often as the old, means the party remains broke and divided. Do people really want to go through this all again just to feed Iggy and Rae's voracious ego?

And, Iggy, if there is a leadership race and you choose to run in it, I will hound you to the gates of Hell.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

...entail that out here in B.C. I have to find out that certain female party leaders whose names rhyme with "Day"and lead relatively verdant parties have given their concession speeches via illegal means. (H/T FleaDee, and I mean it this time)

(PS. East Coast networks are now declaring that the new government will be the party whose name rhymes with "Dory" and that the form of their government will be that signified by a word that rhymes more or less with "Binority" (if that is a word).

I am predicting another Tory minority, but won't bother going into seat counts.

I am predicting that the Liberal Party wakes up tomorrow and, having avoided disaster and realizing that another election could come at any time, decides this is no time to go switching horses. Dion gets a 2nd chance; Count Iggy returns to his coffin.

For this reason, the Tory strategy of making every damn thing a confidence motion no longer serves. Who knows how long the next parliament will last, but I wouldn't be surprised if it staggers along for a good while, passing budgets but otherwise harmless.

I am predicting that The Green Shift becomes history and the Libs quickly embrace a cap and trade system along the lines of the Conservative/NDP proposals. The Carbon Tax was an unfortunate attempt at being honest with the voters, and it didn't work. Bye bye! Cap and Trade has exactly the same effect, even regionally, but it is more cumbersome and doesn't have the word "tax" in it. Give the people what they want!

Of all the party leaders, Elizabeth May will have the hardest time of things post-election. The Greens might get more votes than the Bloc, and yet acquire zero seats in reward. Further, while advocating strategic voting to prevent a Conservative Majority is good and noble, it is not the kind of thing that serves the long-term interest of your own party. I don't know what will happen to her, but I expect some bitterness from the Green grassroots. (And, oh yes, running against MacKay was the single stupidest strategic decision by a politician in the last two years. There were other seats she could have won. Expect some second guessing over that.)

So I may have a wrap-up post for tomorrow morning, or not, but by the time you read it I will be on a plane back to TO. See you on the other side!

Buckets and myself have been trying to figure out why the group Peter Kent founded, the CCD, whose mandate says nothing about Canada's abortion laws (or lack thereof), appears on a list of organizations supporting the Canada Family Action Coalition complaint to the Judicial Council (.pdf here) re Henry Morgentaler's receiving the Order of Canada. In fact all I've got for my troubles in this direction are some vague legal-sounding threats from the CCD's President Al Gordon .

Sunday, October 12, 2008

...the student publication of UBC's Graduate School of Journalism, along with Jared Gallinger and Robert (the smart Tory) Jago. Not too self-congratulatory on the part of us interviewees, and Ms. Allen has written up a good piece on the nuts and bolts on-line politics, esp. the oppo "research" that's been a hall-mark of this campaign. My favorite bit:

“The next election won’t be nearly as fun,” he says.Just to elaborate on the disagreement Jared and I seem to have. There's an old saying: if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. Propounding 9/11 truther doctrine, uttering threats, will not become acceptable behavior just because these things are done via a blog or other on-line forum. What I think will be the much more likely result of the blogging shenanigans of the 2008 campaign is that the parties will raise the standard on even their 3rd string candidates for fear of them embarrassing the national campaign. And any bloggers who see themselves as potential candidates one day will take care to moderate their online opinions, or at least the expression of their online opinions.

People like me and Jared and Jago and Buckets and so forth will have to find other ways of making ourselves annoying.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

...both the Liberals and Tories came out with a vote %, and hence a seat count, down from their 2006 total, as a number of polls suggest.

What would happen to Dion? His conditions of victory have generally been seen to be: more seats with respect to the Tories and he stays, fewer and the knives come out. This 3rd options doesn't seem to have been considered.

What would happen to Harper? Would he want to stay on after having been denied a majority twice?

Friday, October 10, 2008

My free-style French translation of this headline from La Presse. I'm not really sweating the whole accuracy thing too much. And, as Philippe Gohier notes, a small sample size, and who the heck is Segma? But still it shows a huge (11%) decline in Tory support within Quebec.

This is a transcript from a CJOH News Ottawa story on Ed Sieb of the Elie Salibi campaign. His FreeDominion connection, his anti-Muslim and anti-Gay remarks, were first noted here.

I have the audio-file and if anyone know how to post such a thing to blogger, please let me know in the comments.

Also, as you see below Mr. Sieb denies that he was the man behind the remarks. If this turns out to be true I will offer Mr. Sieb and Mr. Salibi a most fulsome apology. But I think the connection has been pretty firmly established.

Anchor: There are calls tonight for a Conservative Party official to be removed, after anti-Islamic comments surfaced on-line. As CTV's John Hua reports, leaders of Ottawa's Muslim community are outraged.Unidentified speaker: This is nonsense. Reporter: It was a post on a right wing website, this woman says defeats years of working for understanding. Unidentified speaker: It's hate mongering, and Muslims have been at the -- under attack since 2001, 9/11, 2001. And for the past seven years, we have worked so hard to build a good image of ourselves. Reporter: The comments were found on freedominion.com, a self proclaimed voice of principled conservatism. On the site, a user by the name Ed S. from Ottawa wrote "Ottawa is filled with hijabs, burquas and full veils, like it was a village in Pakistan, appalling." Another online site, Big City Lib credited the comments to Conservative member Ed Sieb, a worker on the Ottawa-South campaign. Unidentified speaker: Freedom of expression stops when it attacks me or my rights. It attacks me or anybody from my community as -- as he has projected us. Reporter: CTV News contacted Ed Sieb for his reaction, and over the phone, he told us that he is a member of the Conservative Party, and is connected with the candidate in Ottawa South. But when it comes to the website www.freedominion.com, he says he frequents the sites ones or twice every month but is not the user Ed S. and has nothing to do with the hateful remarks. When CTV went to hear Sieb's side of the story at a agreed place and time, no one was home. Unidentified speaker: Because we are reacting, he's denying. He's in denial. Why would somebody else use his name and post such a hateful message on it, and especially if he's working for the Conservative Party. Reporter: She says the Ottawa Muslim community also deserves an apology from the Prime Minister. John Hua, CTV News.

Actually, Mr . Harper, you do go around doing having different programs for every province and every region. For example, your youth crime policy, which says jail 'em at 14 everywhere but in Quebec. What you don't do is offer anything specifically tailored to the cities and their needs. Hence the result you see: no love, no votes.

One can only hope the Tories heed Mr. Coyne's words, because you can do worse than taking advice on empathy from a guy that dresses like an undertaker. And frankly, this hauling Mrs. Harper around the way Harper has been doing is starting to remind me of Norman Bates. Put Mother away, Mr. Harper, and starting calling people that don't agree with you pedophiles again. Its your way.

Oh, and by the way, snowed under by the macro-lousy economic news of the last couple of weeks was this smaller piece of lousy news: Toronto resale home prices last month fell from the same month in the previous year for the first time in ten years. Previously, they had been going up at about the rate of inflation or a little less, even while sales themselves were off 15% or so from 2007. That probably indicates a significant change in buyer/seller psychology. You might continue to price you house higher if you feel that the market will turn around in the short term. When you start cutting the asking figure, that can mean the market consensus is that things will suck for awhile.

I am sure we will see a roaring denunciation out of Rod soon over the silencing of these slightly less than 100% pure pro-lifers. Out of Shaidle, and De Vere, and Boisson and all those folks...I'm sure we'll see it real soon.

When the two biggest items in your election platform amount to climb-downs from earlier initiatives--in the case of cuts to arts funding an initiative announced what two weeks ago?--then you are clearly making up policy in response to the latest polls, and it is obvious you have redefined the term "plan" so that whatever it is you have amounts to one.

Now, interestingly enough, EdS describes himself as a moderator on the Canada Divided website, which advocates Quebec separatism, among other things. When you check the Canada Divided member-list, it is obvious that the EdS from FreeDominion is one Ed Sieb. For example, Ed Sieb is the moderator of the "War on Anglos" forum, and posts several times here. Also, the link to his website goes back to FreeDominion.

Now, Mr. Salibi, here's the kicker. Ed Sieb seems to be working for you. He is listed as being the Electronic Newsletter Editor of the Ottawa South Conservative EDA. Further, I have heard but cannot confirm that he is currently your "policy co-chair", and he certainly appears to have been involved in your campaign as of early September. Is any of this information out of date? And, if not, are willing to stand behind Mr. Siebs view as expressed above? And, if not, why is he working for you?

Note: I haven't figured out a way to link to individual FreeD posts, so you might have to scroll down to see the material I am referencing.

Charles Conn ran for the Reform Party in the riding of Mississauga West back in 1993, losing to Carolyn Parrish. More recently, he has been a persistent critic of the CPoC's lack of commitment to its party grass roots when it comes to the matter of nominating candidates. I have chronicled his complaints against the process that produced Melissa Bhaghat here, and produced Lisa Raitt, here.

Now Charles has a message for the Canadian people!The history books are full of 'strong leaders' whose dictatorial, my-way-or-the-highway rigidity led to disastrous consequences for their people.Perhaps it would be better for Canadians to keep the Harper-controlled Tories in check for a while longer by only electing enough of them to form another minority government.Let's see if they can start to lead by the democratic policies the country so desperately needs instead of copying Liberal pandering.Suggestion: unless your current MP has been an absolute trainwreck, re-elect him or her.And whatever you do, whichever party is involved, shun like the plague every appointed parachute candidate who was shoved down the throats of members in so many constituencies. Just last fall, an impressive majority of Ontarians rejected MMP. Don't let the backroom party big shots in Ottawa sneak it in by stealth.Charles W. Conn, Mississauga.cwc@ceconn.comhttp://www.ceconn.comTake THAT, Ray Heard!!